Fire Emblem: World-Class Summoners
by Xerxes the Paradox
Summary: Reniarc's only break from his usual day-to-day lifestyle is his favorite pastime: Fire Emblem Heroes, a recent hit mobile game. At first, it was an unhealthy addiction for him, dumping thousands of dollars into it each week until the only spending money he had left was to pay rent and to eat. However, a recent event offers to change everything...
1. Opening

My eyes snapped open as, on instinct, my arm slammed down on the buzzing alarm clock next to my head. Groaning, I sat up slowly, groggy from a lack of sleep after staying up too late on my phone. My room was pitch black, not a window in it to let in any sunlight. Then again, at six o'clock in the morning, it wasn't like there was much sunlight at all to wake up to.

Immediately, I reached out and blindly grabbed my phone from the same spot on the nightstand that I always left it before going to sleep at night. Turning it on, I immediately cringed, but instead of adjusting the brightness I stared into the blinding light like some kind of masochist until my eyes adjusted. I didn't expect many notifications, but force of habit made me check it every morning anyway. Other than a few notifications from Facebook and Twitter, the only thing noteworthy to me was a notification from my game stating that my stamina had been restored. Life was all in the tiny victories.

Somehow, ten minutes were already down the drain after some scrolling through my profile on Facebook. Mentally beating myself, I kicked back my covers, hissing silently as cold air raced up my shorts before letting it all out in a breath. Still stiff with sleep, I reluctantly stood up from my bed and flicked on the lights. Still, nothing special was revealed. My room was mostly empty, my bed against one wall with a nightstand and lamp on one side, a desk which was more a storage for miscellaneous junk than proper use stuck against the adjacent wall. There were some shelves on the wall opposite to the desk, but other than a trophy for second place in a school reading competition, a picture which was so dusty it was no longer visible, and an old stuffed wolf toy, it was populated by only dust bunnies. Sad to say, the rest of my apartment wasn't much more to look at, despite how much time I spent sulking around it.

My phone buzzed in my hand, and I looked down, a little surprised. Turning the screen back on, I swiped it open to a new message from "Rogue Goddess":

 _Morning, baby. I know I should be asleep right now and you'll yell at me for being up, but I know you're up and wanted to wish you a good day at work. I'm super proud of you! 3 Keep working hard._

I consider myself a hard egg to crack, but the text made me smile as I shot back a quick reply before walking out of my room and straight to the bathroom to take care of business.

Once I was finished, I walked into the kitchen/dining room. I never ate breakfast, but sometimes I liked to stare in the fridge and pretend there was food in it. Once I was done drooling, I went through the cupboards until I found a box of Pop-Tarts. Tearing open the foil, I pulled one out and held it in my mouth as I walked into the living room, which was openly connected to the kitchen/dining room. It was the only room in the house which had any view of the outside, with a balcony I'd never been bold enough to stand on overlooking a cracked street that was always busy with careless drivers and a beautiful view of the plain, brick apartment building on the other side of the street. Picking up the remote, I turned on the TV, at first playing the last of Adult Swim, but deciding to be a mature, responsible adult and turn on the news to make sure the world wasn't ending just yet.

Sitting down on the two-seat sofa, I munched on my Pop-Tarts as I sent back a reply:

 _Thanks, beautiful. You always know how to bring some light to my day. But you really should try to get some sleep. It's well past three over there. You need your beauty rest. :(_

I hit send, then swept down on the screen and clicked on the game notification. Immediately, blaring music played in my face, nearly making me yelp in surprise as I quickly turned the volume down to zero. No matter how many times, every morning it always caught me off guard. Letting the news play in the background, I loaded my game up. I didn't have much time, so I just collected my daily rewards and did a couple quick quests. I smiled inwardly as I noticed I had twenty orbs now. I had most of the heroes in the game, save some of the rarer and limited ones, but summoning new ones was always a thrill. I'd save it for later though.

Exiting back out of the game, I stood up from the couch and went back to my room, putting on my work uniform. My day job was at Long John Silver's, the only place I could land a job at since the manager was an acquaintance of my mom's. It was ridiculous having to rely on my mother to land a job at 20, but it was work and I needed the money.

My phone buzzed, but I didn't think to check it as I walked out of the apartment and walked down two flights of stairs to the ground floor. My bike was behind the reception desk, the manager of the apartments generous enough to let me keep it inside, knowing how the local community was. Pulling it around from behind the desk, I walked it out the doors of the apartments and onto the deserted sidewalk. Shivering slightly in the chilly morning air, I hopped on the bike and began peddling to work. It was a long ride by bike, but it was cheaper than a car and more reliable than public transport, and it was all that was keeping me in shape, so I dealt with it.

By the time I made it to Long John Silver's, it was 7:27 on the dot. I finally remembered to check my messages, but it was just a reminder to have a good day and a promise to sleep from Rogue Goddess. That was my nickname for my girlfriend in Washington, inspired by her reputation in our shared gaming interest. She wasn't quite as "pro" as me, but her dumb luck in it was enough to make even me fumble. Then again, I made Arthur look like a serial lottery winner with my luck.

Double-chaining my bike behind the restaurant, I took the back way in. Fortunately it didn't open until eight, so there were no people to deal with yet. That is, customers. Obnoxious coworkers were still a problem. Fortunately, there was only one idiot on today's shift, and he was always late anyway.

"Morning, sunshine. You're here early, for once," chirped a perky voice as I walked in. A pretty blonde girl stepped into my view. She wore the standard uniform—like we all did, duh—and wore only as much makeup as code would allow. Her long hair was done up in a ponytail and stuck out from the back of her cap. Normally she would have to put it in a net, but she usually worked the register so no one picked on her for it.

"Morning, Kat. Can't be late everyday, can I?" I grunted in answer, glancing down at her shiny, gold employee-of-the-month name tag with the name Kathryn emblazoned on it.

"Well, you're always more on time than you-know-who, at least," she snorted, rolling her eyes, but a playful grin stayed plastered on her face. "Of course, you still arrived just late enough to not have to go through inventory. Lucky you. Was it by chance? Or devious design?"

"Nothing like that. If I could plan that many steps ahead, you wouldn't get employee-of-the-month every month," I grumbled, walking passed her. "Well, I can't have missed all the fun stuff. Last shift never cleans up properly. I'm sure there's plenty of sticky pop stains on the floor and hush puppies under the booths. I'll get the mop."

"I've got the broom," Kat said in response.

Work was never anything special. Once in awhile, a robbery would happen to liven things up, though no one ever robbed a fast food place. For the most part, it was just screwing around between customers and prepping orders before they could be made. In the morning, it was usually just Kathryn, the other guy, and myself working. Mornings were slow, and we punched out right after lunch rush. It was only six hour days, four or five days a week, but it was mildly invigorating. It was something between long binges on video games, at least.

Partway through cleaning up, Kat spoke up. "Hey, lonesome? What's the game that you've been obsessing over lately? Isn't it called Fire Emblem Heroes or something like that? I looked into it a little last night. You always drone on about it, and I got curious and read some stuff online about it."

I wasn't quite sure what my answer was, but it was some half-hearted answer like, "Oh yeah?" while I was focusing on a nasty spot where someone had managed to grind french fries into the tile.

"Yeah. Can't say I could keep up with it. Guess I'm just more of a Candy Crush girl," she said with a light laugh. "I found something else, though. Apparently, they're adding a live arena or something like that, and to kick it off they're picking thirty-two random players to go to LA for a huge tournament of some kind. Did you hear about that?"

My reply could have been real snarky. The news was a week and a half old, and it was all that the entire community could talk about. Something like this was huge, and it was all anyone on any social media platform that played could talk about. However, thirty-two candidates weren't good odds when the number of players who had downloaded the game was in the millions.

"Yeah, I heard about that," I said, shrugging as I kept on working. "It would be nice to get a crack at it, but I doubt I'd get picked. I'll just stick to casual play for now."

"I wouldn't call spending every spare penny you earn 'casual play,'" she remarked. Sighing, she shook her head. "Shouldn't you be saving at least a little? I thought you had a girlfriend waiting for you across the country or something. She's been waiting for you for two years now, hasn't she? It isn't fair to make her wait any longer over a dumb game."

"It's not like that," I replied, though it came barely above a whisper. No, it was nothing like that… In fact, I had been waiting for exactly this day.

Work went the same as any other day. Hours of filling the same orders of fried fish and hush puppies, and hours more of cleaning spilled drinks and replacing orders. By the time I arrived home at a little before five in the afternoon, I was beat. But where I was going next, it didn't matter how tired I was in the real world.

Walking over to the couch, I sat down and turned the TV on, turning the volume down low. Powering up Fire Emblem Heroes on my phone, I picked up a device similar to the Oculus Rift which was specially made by Nintendo for their mobile gaming market. Syncing it to my phone, I pulled it over my head, leaned back, and enjoyed the ride into the world of gaming.

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, I was in a different world, a different body. I was no longer in the dank, grey city of Saginaw. I was in a bright, vibrant town of buildings of all colors and designs. Other people, some like me, others not, all ventured the town. To the north was a large colosseum like an arena, to the south was a great tower, to the west was the Dragons Gate, and along the eastern horizon a beautiful, blue sea stretched out for eternity. Various shops also populated the square, primarily the orb shop, the feather shop, and the shards and crystals shop. There were others as well, but those three always were the busiest.

I switched into third person mode, which was always odd to do in a virtual reality. Panning around my avatar, I nodded to myself in contentment. Most players made their avatars flashy and bright, but I kept it simple. My avatar faintly resembled myself with a square torso and a large skull, but he was more polished. There wasn't a bit of fat on him, and his arms and legs were strong but not bulging. A patch of black hair covered his chin, with a stubbly shadow on his cheeks and lip, but his neck and the rest of his body were smooth, pale flesh. He wore a leather coat over a black shirt, and black jeans with a pair of combat boots. Studded, fingerless gloves covered my hands, and a tether with silver spikes hung from my left hip, but other than that I didn't care to accessorize overly much. After all, I was only a Summoner. It was the Heroes who did the real work.

"You made me wait," a deep, British voice growled in annoyance.

Switching back into first person, I looked up at a man dressed in full plate armor and a crown that stood before me. Zephiel, The Liberator, my strongest and most trusted Hero. He also led my arena defense team while I was away, one which was rivaled by few other than my fellow "whales."

"It's not like I told you to wait. I'm sure that defending our spot in the arena has kept you busy?" I said without flinching despite the imposing figure that he was. I was his master by all terms, so it wasn't like he was any threat to me or my well being. Aside from that, it was only virtual reality, not the real world.

The man scowled, but dipped his head. "Three enemy Summoners attempted to break our line, and three Summoners fell to their knees before us. Our strength is yet unparalleled."

"Say that again when you're up against a Heavy Spear with no one to guide you," I snorted, walking by him to the Dragons Gate. "Is Catty online yet? She promised to meet me once I was out of work."

"I am not privy to knowledge of the activities of other Summoners," came the expected, curt response. "You should request that from Feh. If she is here, I suspect she would be training."

"Training Tower. Right. She did just summon a couple new Heroes," I mused, recalling her excitement when she summoned Sigurd and Takumi, two truly remarkable Heroes. "I think we should try catching up to her. Zephiel, gather Alm, Brave Lucina, Julia, and Takumi for me and have them meet me at the tower. We're going to speed run up to the ninth."

"As you command." The king bowed to me and turned before vanishing. I could tell he didn't appreciate being my little bitch, but then that was what he got for being my favorite. Sighing, I looked back at the ten floor-high tower. The ninth floor was the highest floor in the tower, starting with the basic floor and then working from one on up, and was also where the strongest foes to train against were at. Most of the tower was filled with generic units with unremarkable skills, but the ninth floor was ridiculous without a decent team and strategy.

Walking wasn't necessary in this world, one could simply will themself between the market, arena, tower, and gate, but I took my time strolling over to the tower. Waiting for me at its entrance, punctual as always, was a green-haired swordsman, a blue-haired lancer, an anemic looking girl, and an Eastern prince with a bow. They were some of my other favorites, and though they didn't have perfect synergy, for a simple tower run they would do.

"Nothing special today," I told the team of princes and princesses. "We're making our way up to the ninth as quickly as possible. With any luck, we'll find who we're looking for long before we get there. This will be good training for you four as well, so don't slack off. The extra SP and HM never hurts."

The team nodded, though of course they likely didn't understand half of it. Ordering Heroes didn't require verbal commands, but sometimes I just liked to hear myself speak. Nodding them along, they entered the tower, with me following close behind. Up until the sixth or seventh floor I knew I could trust them to act on their own, but after that point the enemies would be too strong to trust the finicky AI of Fire Emblem Heroes.

As expected, of course, it was roughly upon reaching the seventh that I had to take over command. Despite it, beating the enemy teams was cake. The team leader on the seventh was a Lon'qu with a horrible randomly generated skillset, and the eighth was led by Fae, who couldn't have stood up to Alm if she wanted to. What surprised me most was that Catty wasn't on any of the previous floors, meaning she could only be on the ninth.

"Alright, keep on your toes!" I called to my Heroes. "This next battle will be a bit more tricky! I don't want to have a single casualty."

"Right!" they chanted back without missing a beat. Of course, it didn't really affect much in an RPG where numbers determined everything, and I had the advantage in almost every battle. Just one boon to being so dedicated to my sport.

Across the battlefield, my foes spawned in. I bit my cheek as I saw who I was up against. Reinhardt, Nowi, Lyn, and Brave Ike all appeared before me, and no less looking over their skills, they would be troublesome foes. Troublesome, yet not unworkable. This was the most wide and open map of them all, with nowhere for my enemies to hide from me.

Battling in Fire Emblem Heroes was simple. Every map was a six by eight grid, with the starting locations of units dependent upon the map. This one was from the CH2-5 story mode battle. Gridding the map like it was a game of Battleship, the starting locations of Reinhardt, Nowi, Lyn, and Brave Ike were B2, B3, B4, and B5, accordingly. My units were in the the same columns, but in row G. I organized them so Julia was directly across from Reinhardt, with Takumi to her right. Alm held the opposing end to Brave Ike, and Brave Lucina was between him and Takumi, offering the whole team the buffs her lance and C Skill offered.

For my first turn, I ordered the units to hold, allowing the enemy to approach instead. On the enemy turn, they acted exactly as I expected them to. Nowi didn't move, instead buffing Reinhardt with Rally Defense. Immediately, the Blue Cavalier charged straight for Julia and attacked her. His special Dire Thunder tome dealt two hits automatically, but against Julia each barely scathed her and she countered with a one-shot kill. Her Fury damaged her as a penalty, hurting her more than the actual attack did. Brave Ike and and Lyn moved forward, though they switched sides so Ike was now across from Lucina, a disadvantage but not one I was concerned with.

My turn came, and I moved Julia forward, but kept her just out of the enemy's range. On my silent command, Alm marched forward two tiles, putting him in range of Lyn and I positioned Lucina behind him, safe from the enemy Ike but still close enough to offer her buffs. Takumi came up next to Alm, his Close Counter making me more than bold enough to run him up on the enemy units. The enemy turn came, and I watched them fall one by one. Automatically, Lyn attacked Alm, dealing a moderate amount of damage to him, but in the long run, she fell to him. Even the Brave Mercenary, when he entered combat with Alm, couldn't survive as his Dragon Fang activated, KOing him in one shot. Nowi miserably advanced, but when my turn came, it was Julia who made short work of the poor child.

"They just don't make tower units like they used to," I sighed with a shrug, walking forward as trumpets blared in victory, a screen appearing in front of me displaying my loot. I swiped it aside, not caring about the small prize. No, who I was looking for was waiting for me, her heroes right beside her.

"Took you long enough, Prince Charming," the woman giggled, watching me with cat-like eyes.


	2. Chapter 1

"So, the next big update adds a lot, doesn't it?" asked the large summoner.

I nodded, sipping down a stamina potion, too impatient to wait for my stamina to recharge on its own. "That's only what they teased on Feh Channel yesterday. They said they were adding a lot more than just that. The whole damn game is changing."

Sitting with me in the square of Fire Emblem Heroes were two of my friends, Maia and Joker. Joker was a big guy IRL, and his avatar was as well. He was a portly man with chubby cheeks and ruddy stubble covered his cheeks and neck. He wore a beige tunic which was stretched a bit thin over his pot belly, with a leather breastplate that was two sizes too small covering his chest, all around giving his character a very cartoony look. Maia had a more pretty and motherly looking avatar, tall and lithe with long, brown hair. She changed outfit s every so often, but presently she was wearing a creamy, semi-transparent blouse over a peach tunic with a chiffon pleated skirt. Beside the both of them were their lead heroes, Corrin (the male one) beside Maia and Kagero with Joker. Zephiel was also present, having been silently leering over the others as I reviewed the last episode of Feh Channel to the others.

"That live arena definitely sounds like it's going to be huge. Shame, though, it'll go to the whales the moment that goes live," Joker sighed, inspecting his nails. "Good for you, Ren, but I guess we'll be stuck with the old one one for the time being."

"I don't think so," I said, shaking my head. "They're talking about making the live arena more balanced by removing the bonuses from merge levels during arena battles. This way, F2Pers and P2Pers can fight equally in battles based purely on skill, not player investment."

"Really? But would the players really like that?" Maia spoke up. "I'm sure that F2Pers would be more than happy with it, but the P2Pers would probably get upset by a system like that. They would find it unfair that even though they paid money on the game to build such strong heroes, it wouldn't give them any advantage in the live arena. Why don't they just break it up into different rankings based on the power of the Heroes so that way everyone can be happy and the battles remain fair?"

"I can answer that one," Joker replied. "Look at the current arena. It's also tier based and pits you against teams which are based on your team's BST and your tier in the arena. Yet, all the time weaker players end up against OP teams simply because they got lucky and managed to summon sort of powerful 5-star hero."

I nodded my head. "That's exactly why. The current system for 'balancing' PvP teams isn't very efficient, so the best way is to remove things like hero merges from the equation. Also, since the battles are live, you can choose to challenge a specific opponent yourself so that way random pairings aren't as likely to screw you over. It's also possible to challenge players one tier above or below you, so as a Tier 1 summoner who just got started you don't end up against a Tier 5 simply because their team's BST totals out a little low."

The other two seemed to seemed to pause for a moment, thinking. Of course, the system wasn't flawless. It would be easy to bait weak players into challenging you by assigning a pathetic hero like Odin or Wrys as your lead hero but then actually use a super powerful team. I suspected that would be the first complaint to the system, but the only way to balance it would be if you could see your opponent's entire team, but then the issue would be that no one would accept a challenge unless they had a distinct advantage. There really was no perfect solution other than to have an executive hand select each pair in a duel. Of course, that would never work. No one wanted to rate teams by hand all day, and it would bog the whole system down.

"Well, guess it can be summed up to 'Intelligent' Systems," Joker sighed, shaking his head. "I think I'm going to go do a few runs in the Training Tower. I've still got a few orb quests to milk before the next monthly quests begin."

"Hey, do you know if Scarlet is online, Ren?" Maia asked. "Not saying I miss him, but his stubbornness probably ignored all the update announcements. Kind of hard for me to see if he's online since I deleted him."

"Hold on, let me check," I said, pulling down my menu. Going over to my friends list, I scrolled until I spotted his name. I nodded. "Yeah, looks like he's online. Moping around the Dragons Gate, it seems. Probably got another botch batch."

"Eh, I'd rather not here him whine," Maia muttered. "I think I'm going to logout for the day. I've got three papers to finish in three days."

"Later, Maia," I said, watching as she faded out of the virtual world and her name suddenly went inactive on my list. Sighing, I looked around the square and hummed. Catty wasn't active on my list either, and if she was online it was probably on one of her alt accounts I hadn't bothered adding. I didn't have any need to grind at the Training Tower, and there were no other events going on at the present. So, for now, I decided to go check on Scarlet and see how he was doing.

Rather than walking, I pulled up the menu and hit the option to warp to the summoning gate. At a press of a button, I was teleported to an obelisk sort of structure with several slots on its face. The Dragons Gate didn't exactly represent its name well, instead it was a pillar where orbs could be spent to summon heroes. It was usually the busiest place in the game, after the Tempest Trials when that event was active.

Waiting near the gate was a lone player, sighing as he looked at his inventory in anguish. He had auburn hair and pale, freckly skin. His clothing was similar to that of Shiro, with a red tunic with white patterning beneath a leather brigandine with a tough pair of cloth pants. Behind him was his lead hero, Ayra, calmly overlooking her master. Though the player avatars were expressionless unless you choose an action, anyone knew the look of a player who had just wasted their orbs on a profitless summoning session.

"Let me guess: 3-star Stahl, 3-star Wrys, 4-star Barst," I recited, approaching the player.

"Close. I got a Bartre this time," came the answer which was flat and monotone even for what was usual in this game. He closed the menu and sighed. "Don't know what I was expecting from a stupid gacha game."

"Well, you didn't exactly optimize your pulls. You just pulled a 5-star in your last sesh, if I recall, and this banner is just about to end. So, yeah, pretty bad move," I confirmed, crossing my arms.

"Like you can talk much. All you do is spend until you've got ten of everything," Scarlet scoffed. "You play right into the gacha trap. How you even afford it, I don't understand. You can barely even save up the money to go see your 'girlfriend.'"

I frowned, uncrossing my arms. Behind me, Zephiel stiffened slightly. "We've been over this before, Scarlet. It's no one's place to judge how another plays. There's plenty who have spent far more than me."

"Was I judging you? I wasn't, but it's not my problem if you took it that way." He dropped down his menu again, still not even looking at me. "If you need anything, I'll be at the Training Tower, grinding SP. Delthea and Legion still need a little more before they're complete."

Before I could even react, he was gone in a pillar of light. Shaking my head, I turned away from the Dragons Gate and headed back to the square. Typical of Scarlet, albeit it was still frustrating the way he acted. Sometimes, the only reason I could even tolerate him was because he gave solid advice on builds sometimes. That wasn't even enough for the others, though.

"Suggestions on what we should do for today?" I asked my partner.

"You have unfinished quests in the current Grand Hero battle," Zephiel answered. "You must defeat Michalis in the current Grand Hero Battle on Lunatic difficulty or higher using Michalis and Anna. There is also an active quest to defeat Michalis on Infernal difficulty using Minerva."

"Sounds like fun," I replied, opening up my barracks menu, inspecting the units in it. I had every hero in the game at level 40+10—with some exceptions—and even multiple builds of some to suit different purposes and teams. Michalis was primarily my lead unit in a Flier Emblem team, while Anna, being a unit which couldn't be merged, was on my bench team with Alfonse, Sharena, and Fjorm. I had two builds for Minerva, one on an alternate Flier Emblem team, and the other was the lead unit of my team Whitewings.

"Let's knock those out of the way, then," I said, setting my active team to Whitewings. "Set up a ping for when Catty comes online."

"It is done," came the curt reply. "We'll have to travel through the Dragons Gate to reach the battleground against the Grand Hero."

"Yes, I know this," I said, but rather than go through that, I opened up the battle menu and went to the special maps. At the top of the list was Michalis' battle. Clicking on it, I selected the Infernal map and warped to the battlefield, Zephiel gone and my Whitewings before me.

Michalis's map had a lot going on with it. Not only did he outnumber me by a unit, but most of his forces ha cover behind mountains, walls, and forests, not that it mattered much with my team of fliers. However, they were vastly outmatched.

The enemy units were scattered across most of the map, but wouldn't advance on my units immediately. Michalis was waiting on tile 3,4. The other units were a Sword Flier on 3,3, a Sword Flier Flier on 2,4, a Lance Flier on 4,4, a Lance Fighter on 1,2, and a Sword Cavalier on 6,1. My units were all on 2,8, 3,8, 4,8, and 5,8 to start, leaving them out of enemy range with room to take formation and get my buffs off.

It took me three turns to get my units all properly positioned. Their finishing positions had Minerva just in range of Michalis, with Palla hiding behind a wall to her left and Catria behind her buffing her offenses. Michalis attack first, chipping down Minerva's HP from 52 to 43, while she made an excellent counterattack that depleted his HP from his whopping 69 to just 35. By my next turn, he'd be finished.

The grunts on the enemy team moved, the fliers encircling Michalis and the two outlying units working down the sides of the map, preparing to flank me. My turn came, and of course there was only one option.

"Minerva! Attack Michalis!" I ordered the Axe Dragoon.

"Brother! You're finished!" the wyvern rider spat as she raised her axe, her Special Skill Vengeance triggering at that moment. The attack hit him head on, and his HP rapidly dropped by another thirty hit points.

"I won't surrender!" Michalis growled, counterattacking Minerva, but it did little as her follow-up attack knocked him out of the sky.

"Good work," I congratulated her. "Alright, the real threat is down! The rest of this battle should be a cakewalk."

And so the battle was. Once Michalis was down, Catria advanced and took out one of the two Sword Fliers he'd been covering, the one who was buffing all of them with its Ward Fliers C Skill, and Est swung around Palla to intercept the advancing Lance Fighter. The following enemy turn, Catria took down both of the remaining fliers, and Est took out the Lance Fighter, taking a massive hit to her HP, but all that was left was the Sword Cavalier which had finally wrapped around to my starting point.

"Palla, Minerva, advance to 3,6 and 4,6. Catria, move to 3,7. Est, advance north two tiles and hold," I drawled, already disinterested in the remainder of the fight. The victory screen flashed and I skipped through it before returning to the central square at the quest fountain. My reward was—drumroll—a 3-star Michalis.

"Excellent. Can never have enough of those," I sighed, confirming the reward and sending the new hero to my barracks. He'd probably end up getting sent home for feathers. I already had all of my heroes at +10, so there was no need to hoard extras for merging. Then again, I could keep him to inherit his A Skill if they added any new fliers…

"Working hard at those quests, big boy?" a feminine voice giggled behind me.

I turned, and couldn't help but smile as I saw the avatar behind me. She was tall and slender, with dark hair and emerald eyes. A pair of cat ears peeked up from her hair, a prop from the Halloween banner, and she was dressed in a pink skirt and blouse with black frills and skull-shaped buttons.

"Only as hard as I need to. No need to waste my stamina until they add some new heroes worth getting," I replied with a simple shrug. "I've already got a massive stockpile of orbs and some fodder heroes off to the side, waiting. I'm ready for whatever IS throws at us."

Catty giggled and shook her head. "That's just like you, Ren. It's also just like you that you would know the big news. Fire Emblem Heroes is getting a live arena, and they're kicking it off with a LAN tournament!"

I nodded, crossing my arms. "Yeah, I've heard about that. Supposedly there's some sort of jackpot for the champion, as well as the semifinalist and the other two runners-up. Knowing them, it's probably just some orbs and a free Black Knight. Shame it's all based on that oh-so reliable Intelligent Systems RNG, though. There's only thirty-two openings in the tournament. Not particularly amazing odds."

"Maybe not, but that does bring me to my point." She shifted a bit nervously, her voice careful, slow. "I spoke to my boss, Phillip, and told you about how good you are at this game. I convinced him that if you got called for this tournament or if there were future tournaments he'd talk to you about sponsoring you. Since Heroes is going professional now, AIDz is hiring and they'd be happy to have someone as talented as you."

I stared at her blankly. Tsking, I looked away. "Why would I sign up for it when you've probably already given me it?"

She sighed, shaking her head. "For starters, it's pronounced ' _AID-Z_ ,' not 'AIDS.' I just thought it'd be great if we could work together, and I thought you'd be happy to have a strong organization like AIDz backing you up. It could make work in the future much easier for you."

"The reason esports organizations like AIDz exists isn't to support the player, Catty, it's to get a cut on the winnings," I drawled out. "You know what my thoughts on them are, and especially AIDz. I have no reason to like anyone in that organization. Hell, the only reason I even tolerate them is because you're one of them."

I looked back at Catty and frowned. She was hugging her arm to her side and tracing the ground with her foot. I sighed, realizing that, unintentionally, I'd upset her. I knew how she felt about AIDz but I just couldn't understand it. Especially after previous interactions I'd had with members of AIDz already.

"I'll consider it," I finally gave in. "But don't get your hopes up! Knowing my luck, though, it's not likely I'll get picked anyway so it's not like it matters."

Catty's expression brightened, and she laughed in delight. "Oh, I'm sure you'll get picked. This is you we're talking about, after all! You're recognized as the best player in North America, so I'm sure they'll give you some advantage in the drawings. Didn't you know that you get a number of lots based on what tier you're in? You'll be getting twenty entries!"

I stared at her disbelievingly. "Wait, since when? I didn't see that on the Feh Channel or the notification board."

"That's because they didn't put it there," she responded, sticking her tongue out before pulling up a screenshot from their Twitter. "It was updated on the official FEH Twitter. I guess they didn't think to put it on Feh Channel or the board. Also, the top one hundred players in the world get a additional entries based on their rank. The number one gets an additional one hundred, number two gets ninety-nine, and so forth."

I toned her out as she drawled on, dropping down my menu and checking my arena rank. I was Rank 45 in Tier 20. If what she said was true, that would mean I had seventy-five entries. Could this really be happening? Did I actually have a chance?

"Seventy-five odds in over ten million," I said to myself. The odds still seemed puny. That was still one in something less than 150 thousand. But it was much greater than what I originally thought I'd be getting.

"I actually have a chance of getting in, don't I?" I said aloud, looking at my girlfriend. She smiled.

"I'd ring up Phillip now," she giggled. "I'm telling you, you have to get in. There's no way you can miss out now. The prize is still a mystery, but I've heard the champion will also get to design a unique hero to be added to the game, but they get it for free in advance."

"Yeah… Maybe I do have a chance." I smiled. It would be an amazing honor to make it into the tournament. Still, I hoped she didn't actually expect me to join AIDz if I did make it in.

We spent the rest of the evening together. We went to the Training Tower together, and I blessed her summons for her. Of course, her luck was impeccable, and she got two 5-stars. At last, at 11 o'clock, came out reluctant farewells. Hopefully the day that we would go to bed together wouldn't be such a far off dream for much longer.


End file.
